Urban Population Exposure to Particulate Air Pollution Induced by Road Transport

Abstract

In the last years, there has been an increase of scientific studies confirming that long- and short-term exposure to particulate matter pollution leads to adverse health effects. The determination of accumulated human exposure in urban areas (in the present study focused on Lisbon) is the main objective of the current work combining information on concentrations at different microenvironments and population time-activity pattern data. A link between a mesoscale meteorological model and a local scale model (Computational Fluid Dynamics' based) was developed to define the boundary conditions for the local scale application. The time-activity pattern of the population was derived from statistical information for different sub-population groups and linked to digital city maps. Finally, the hourly PM,, concentrations for indoor and outdoor microenvironments were estimated for the Lisbon city centre based on the local scale air quality model application for a chosen day. The developed methodology is a first approach to estimate population exposure, calculated as the total daily values above the thresholds recommended for long- and short-term health effects. Obtained results reveal that, in fact, in Lisbon city centre a large number of persons are exposed to particulate matter (PM) levels overpassing the legislated limit value. To get more accurate and consistent conclusions, a larger study, including a series of single days, should be performed.